MOSCOW. June 26 (Interfax-AVN) - Control over the operation of eleven GPS stations deployed on the Russian territory is necessary from the national security point of view, Glonass Non-Profit Partnership President Alexander Gurko said.
"The regime of correction data transmission, with or without delay, really matters to military users. Probably, it would be expedient from the national security point of view that our authorities can control the transfer of this data from the Russian territory," Gurko said at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday.
The eleven stations deployed in Russia were funded by NASA and transmitted data to improve the precision of the U.S. GPS global positioning system, he said. "It would be expedient to control this data from the military point of view," Gurko said.
He added though that the situation was political rather than purely technical. "There is lots of politics here, little technology and absolutely no business in this matter," Gurko stated.
Speaking of the U.S. ban on the positioning of Glonass stations on its territory, Gurko said that was immaterial to the Glonass operation.
"The failure to deploy five or six stations will have no effect on the serviceability of the Glonass network," Gurko said.